On the front lines for the White House Correspondents' Association

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The New York Times

As the sole photographer on the board, much of what Doug Mills does for WHCA involves negotiating with the White House for greater access to the president. That’s become even more the case as the Obama team has become increasingly insistent on using its own media team to cover some presidential events, then releasing photos or videos on its website and through social media.

“One of the complaints from a lot of the photographers and photo editors is that the White House hands out a lot of photos of events we didn’t even see,” said Mills, who started covering the White House during the Reagan administration. “They basically have their own wire service … so it’s up to us to remind the White House that we’re there and deserve access.”

Christi Parsons

TribuneWashingtonBureau

Most reporters started covering Obama during the 2008 campaign or maybe when he first arrived in Washington as a senator in 2005. Christi Parsons has 10 years on them. She started covering Obama for the Chicago Tribune in 1996, when Obama was elected to the Illinois state Senate.

As a junior member of the minority party, Obama didn’t get much attention from the Springfield press. But Parsons talked to him from time to time because he represented Chicago and was interested in the state’s death penalty law. From there, Parsons followed his rise in the statehouse and covered his 2004 campaign for the U.S. Senate.

But she didn’t head to Washington immediately.

“I thought there was nothing more exciting than the Illinois statehouse, I really did,” she said in an interview. Eventually, though, an editor persuaded her to make the move as Obama eyed the 2008 race. By early 2007, she was out on the campaign trail with Obama and has been covering him ever since.

Elected to the WHCA board in 2012, Parsons will be the 2014-15 president.

April Ryan

AmericanUrbanRadioNetworks

After covering the White House for 16 years, April Ryan is acutely aware of the critical responsibility of the press corps to hold the president accountable to the American people, and fighting for the ability to do that and to provide an accurate account for history are her passions.

“We advocate for one another to be able to accurately tell that story,” she says. “Everybody can tell their own story, but sometimes when you tell your own story, you’re kind of biased.”

Ryan, only the third African-American to serve on the WHCA board since its founding, has also advocated for more diversity in the White House press corps and has conducted outreach to encourage more women and minorities to become involved in the WHCA.